


Skies of Summer (Dare to Hope Remix)

by momebie (katilara)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Gen, Remix Redux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 14:08:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4140654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katilara/pseuds/momebie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne seems to have an innate talent for building in dreams, but Arthur knows there are other virtues she'll need to be truly successful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skies of Summer (Dare to Hope Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Skies of Summer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1534907) by [Elizabeth Culmer (edenfalling)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenfalling/pseuds/Elizabeth%20Culmer). 



“Consciousness is a filter,” Arthur says. 

He reaches out and grasps Ariadne’s wrist to remove the needle, trying to be gentle with her. Three test dreams ago he’d had to shoot her awake to keep his projections from getting to her. Even in a dream that can be damaging and frightening in a way that leaves a nasty stitch in the subconscious. Arthur himself is used to guns now, both while awake and asleep, but that doesn’t mean he wishes that awareness on this young woman, this college student who has been all but shanghaied into the operation.

Most importantly, he doesn’t want Ariadne to fear him. She’ll never trust him if she fears him, and he needs her trust. He moves slowly and deliberately in his contact and she tracks him with heavy-lidded eyes as she shakes off the effects of the drug.

“Everything comes in,” he continues. “But your mind shunts information away from your attention. Our brains weren’t built to be able to handle focusing on all of the information we receive all of the time, so it focuses on what it needs and your subconscious collects the rest.” 

Ariadne, fully awake now and back to herself, scrunches her nose in frustration as he swabs her arm with a bit of cotton. 

“I know you want to be able to control all of it,” he says. “But you have to let go of that. Not only is it impossible, but it’s keeping your focus scattered. That’s why the dreams are failing.”

She presses her fingers to his over the swab and he pulls away, leaving her to hold it to the puncture wound. They’ve done this so many times now that she can probably handle the aftercare herself, but he still feels responsible for it. She furrows her brow. 

“Are you saying I should stop trying to shape any details? That doesn’t make any sense. What if everything comes straight from my memory? How do I maintain a structure? I need to be able to keep us safe.”

“Hey,” he says. “Don’t worry about that. Safety is my job, yours is building.”

“Surely it’s a joint effort at the very least,” she says, tentatively. She makes eye contact with him and he can see that she’s still smarting from the perceived failures of her earlier attempts.

Arthur looks away and busies himself with stowing the PASIV. He shuts the clasps on the case and the click of them rings out with an air of finality. “Get your sweater,” he says. “I think we could both use some air.” 

He leads her to the rickety iron staircase in the corner of the building. It sways a little as they climb. Their footsteps echo off the high ceilings and wide walls.

Arthur pauses at the top. “You have to shape the dream at least a little or anything’s likely to happen, but you also have to trust yourself to let go and let your mind and the mark fill in the rest of it naturally. You can’t force comprehension or emotion.” 

Ariadne stands on the step below him, looking up and so close that her shoulder brushes his side. “I have a hard time letting go of control,” she says. 

“That makes two of us.” Arthur gives her a small smile. He pushes open the door and gestures for her to go on through. 

From the rooftop Paris forms a maze of its own all around them. The early spring breeze is still cool as it dances by. Her hair and scarf float out with it, making her into a bright and spritely weathervane. Arthur comes through the doorway around her and steps out to the edge. He places his hand against the railing and leans into it a little, looking out over the city. 

There are moments-warm, fragile, crystalline moments like this one-when he can’t believe this is his life. When he can push away the thievery and the violence and the subterfuge and just let himself enjoy all of the beauty the world has to offer. When he can revel in the fact that he’s seen so much more of it than he ever thought possible. 

She joins him at the edge, elbow brushing his as she reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ears. “So what are you proposing?”

“It’s something Mal taught me when I was first starting out.” She tenses at the name, no doubt remembering the crazed woman who plunged a knife into her gut. 

Mal is too much to explain now, but he will eventually, he knows it. He’ll explain to Ariadne the way Mal had been when she’d been alive-warm and loving, free with her affection and time, full of laughter. Mal had been a buoy to Cobb certainly, but she’d been one to Arthur as well. It’s important to him that people remember her as she was, that Cobb remembers her as she was. Not the projection. Flesh and blood and spirit. 

“Okay,” Ariadne says finally. 

Arthur looks up at the deep blue of the sky and the flocks of clouds crawling steadily across it. Ariadne follows his gaze and he can feel her relax again. He wants to know what she sees in them, if his bull is her boat, his bow and arrow her bird. He wants to know that she is full of necessary hope and a belief in a way forward, because those are integral to being a successful architect. But there will be another time to ask. Probably. 

“Structures, rooms and buildings and trains and the like, are all complicated and rigid. It’s not enough to have the shape. You have to have the details, the smells and textures, just right. This perception is a trap that forces you to think scenes can and should be controlled entirely. 

“And you’re saying that’s a failing of mine? The attempt?” Her voices is flat. He guesses she’s not used to failure and doesn’t yet know how to welcome the lessons it brings. 

“Not failure,” he says. “Just a miscalculation. We’re going to try something new. Study the clouds. Look at that far away patch of grass below us. These are shapes without definition. These are ideas that are freer when they’re not controlled. 

She tilts her head back and he feels her sway into him, probably a bit dizzy from the side effects of so much forced sleep. He reaches over and grasps her hand. He pulls it up and sets it onto the railing so she can ground herself against it. Her fingers are warm and soft beneath his. It’s been so long since he’s touched hands that have never held a gun. At least, he assumes she hasn’t. The thought of her becoming used to the casual and non-casual violence of this life cracks open something in his chest leaves it aching for a moment. He lets go of her hand. 

“No structure,” she says, gripping the rail tight. 

“No structure,” he agrees. “And if there’s nothing for you to alter there won’t be anything to draw the attention of the projections. 

“I could change the clouds,” she says.

It sounds wistful, but when he looks at her she’s smirking, playing devil’s advocate. There’s no way for her to know that his first instinct is to take that as a threat, that he has never known a harmless trickster. He thinks it would be doing her a disservice to think of her as harmless either, but he knows that’s not her intention. They’re all in this together now. It’s just in her nature to push boundaries, to enjoy what she’s creating. 

There’s not really that many years between them. He wonders if he’s always felt this old or if it just takes the carelessness afforded to a youth lived in safety to remind him that he hasn’t lived that way in quite some time. Ariadne is just a jumble of things he would like to have back and can’t. 

“You could,” he says. “But you won’t, because it will defeat the purpose of the exercise. Just watch the sky. Focus on your breath.” That last part is more of an admonishment to himself than an instruction. He trains his eyes back on the sky and studies the towering mountain of clouds drifting over, giving the clear sky a dimension that makes it seem impossibly steeped in possibility. “If you need more time or less distraction I can leave you.” 

She looks from the sky to him and back again. “No, I think I’ve got it. Grass and sky. Blue above, green below. Sounds like a picnic. I could add a blanket, pull a mean potato salad from a harmless memory.” She’s grinning, pushing the boundaries again. 

“Let’s stick with the field first,” he says. The spark in her eyes dims just slightly and he hastily adds. “I’m not saying no to another dream after, but anyone can do a blanket. How about you try a good breeze and some fancy kites?”

She closes her eyes and tilts her face to the sun. The real breeze picks up again, ruffling her hair. “What will I get if I succeed?”

“It’s a bit cool still for a real picnic, but I could easily get us some cheese and wine. Might even try to find you some potato salad, if I’m really impressed.”

“You’re on,” she says. Ariadne turns on her heel and heads back to the door. She pauses with her hand on the handle and looks back to him. “Are you coming? Or are you afraid you’ll have to deliver?”

Arthur spares one last glance at the sky before pushing away from the railing and following her back down the steps. She settles into her reclining lawn chair in contemplative quiet as he pulls the PASIV back out and hooks them up again. 

“Remember,” he says. “It’s not about control.” 

She closes her eyes without answering. He pushes the button on the machine to send the chemicals washing through them and then he’s out. 

Ariadne’s spring is a field of rich, green grass, unevenly clipped, but lush and soft. She’s standing several yards away, propped against a tree with her hands in her pockets. She’s still wearing jeans, but instead of the cardigans and scarves he’s become used to she’s wearing a pink and white plaid button up. He wonders if it’s a piece of clothing that belongs to this place in her mind. 

Above him the sky is wide and blue, big and boundless the way he remembers it being in the midwest. It’s a little too dark, ocean blue like an oncoming storm instead of the lightness of ozone tinged freedom, but it’s not something they can’t work on with a small tweak. Clouds move gently across it. Their bottoms are tinged pinkish-orange, as if painted by the mere anticipation of a sunset. As he joins her under the branches of the tree a stiff breeze gusts by, shaking the leaves and causing the mottled light to dance over her face. 

She’s grinning at him, brimming with pride. “What do you think?” 

“It’s a good start,” he says. 

“Good start?” She sighs. “Don’t you ever just let people have their small victories?”

“My victories are only victories if no one dies,” he reminds her. 

She pushes away from the tree and brushes his shoulder as she moves past him, back out into the sun. He turns to follow her, but she only makes it a few more steps before she drops to the ground and spreads out on her back with her hands under her head. Arthur looks down at her for a few moments before joining her. He’s probably going to get grass stains on his shirt, and even in the dream that concerns him. He pushes it away. 

They lie side by side in companionable quiet for a few minutes before she says, “What do you see?”

“I see a competent project delivered,” he says. 

Ariadne laughs, loud and sudden, and it startles Arthur. He turns his head to look at her and she’s smiling wide with her eyes closed tight. After a few gulps of breath she says, “No. What do you see in the clouds, dummy. God, have you always been like this?”

“Depends on what you mean by ‘this’.” He kicks at her foot lightly and she kicks back. She turns her head and looks him in the eye. “No,” he says finally. “If you stick with this it will change you. I know that’s not in Cobb’s recruitment speech, but it should be obvious. It’s not exactly what you’ve been going to school for.” 

Ariadne nods and looks at the sky again. “I see a dog.” 

“How do you know it’s not a wolf?” 

“It’s determined, but not vicious,” she says. “Loyal.” 

It’s not the way Arthur usually thinks of himself, but it’s a description he’ll happily accept. One killer, seen through the naivete of youth. Apparently she has hope after all. He finds it warming and unfamiliar when applied to himself. It’s probably what will get them all through this. 

“I see a kite,” he says, because he does. One has drifted into their view. It’s a double box of bright purple with pink streamers. He sits up. Where they had been alone before they are now surrounded by projections. There are a good ten people milling about in the field, reading or talking or running after one another. His hand goes go his holster in preparation. 

Ariadne sits up and places her hand over his to stay it. When he looks at her she shakes her head. “I’m not afraid.” 

The purple kite is attached to a small girl of about nine. She’s being trailed by a boy, maybe six, who’s also controlling a kite. This one is a tropical fish with iridescent scales. The tail flaps against the wind and guides it to and fro as it tugs tightly on the string in the boy’s hands. The wind continues to blow steadily around them, picking up a little when either of the kites dip. 

Under the tree now there are three girls on a blanket pouring wine into red plastic cups. She smirks at him. “Competent enough?”

Arthur runs his hand back and forth over the grass, watching as the individual blades move. He plucks one and holds it up, studying the crease in the center and the way it dips and bobs against his fingers in the breeze. “Yes,” he says. 

“That feels more like a gold star sticker than any extra credit I’ve received in the last ten years.” 

“Tough teachers yield tough students,” he muses. There’s a tuft of weeds near him, long thin green stalks with bright red bulbs on the ends. He plucks one and puts it between his teeth. It tastes just like it did when he was a child. 

She laughs again, more gently this time. “We better get going on that wine and cheese, if you’re just going to eat the grass.” 

“It has been a long day,” he says. “We could both use it, I think.”

“I’m looking forward to the potato salad. Haven’t had any of that since I left home.” She smiles at him and it’s a small, private thing he feels lucky to be privy to. He hopes to god he never has to shoot her again, in the dream or not. 

Arthur leans over and places his hand on her shoulder. He leans in close and squeezes gently. “Wake up.”

**Author's Note:**

> I like the way edenfalling writes the Arthur & Ariadne friendship, and in reading over the stories I found myself wanting to know more about the way they built out the dreams together in those first lessons and what they could learn from them. Please forgive me any liberties taken with your original characterization. I hope you find this entertaining. 
> 
> Thanks for the opportunity!


End file.
